Semi-inactive Octave dev here. Even though I use Python every day, and I have used scipy often, I still reach for Octave whenever I need a quick calculation th

Semi-inactive Octave dev here. Even though I use Python every day, and I have used scipy often, I still reach for Octave whenever I need a quick calculation that I don't feel like turning into a big project. And yeah, it's nice that matrices are first-class objects. Sometimes I miss 1-dimensional arrays or sensible strings, but it's not a big deal, and for quick, short things, the Octave syntax is still a lot easier to deal with than Python. Most of Octave's users describe themselves as "not a programmer", despite using a programming language, so I think there's still room for this kind of software in the world.